Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 LordCorwin Jul 17, 2015 8:50:43	How do you make a proper mix of these? Since the levels don't mix for spells. I want to make a character who is patroned to an archfiend and has a dark pact, but is also a powerful necromancer wizard. So that seems like it would be a multiclass warlock/wizard, right?
#2 Yunru Jul 17, 2015 9:12:44	Why? Lose the wizard entirely. You can be a powerful necromancer without being a Wizard necromancer.
#3 LordCorwin Jul 17, 2015 9:28:33	Okay? Not what I was asking, but thanks I guess?
#4 Yunru Jul 17, 2015 9:43:05	My point is if you're just going Wizard to be "a powerful necromancer wizard", don't bother. Stay straight Warlock and say you're a powerful necromancer wizard. Just because you character sheet doesn't say "wizard" doesn't mean you can't be a wizard.
#5 LordCorwin Jul 17, 2015 9:44:39	Are you familiar with the differences between what a warlock is and how a wizard works?
#6 Yunru Jul 17, 2015 10:14:42	Yup. One has spells that recharge on a short rest and a different spell list. That's the only difference spellcasting wise. So yeah, I know what the differences are.
#7 Bloodscythe Jul 17, 2015 13:31:29	Are you wanting a build that specifically grants you the necromancer special abilities?   Yunru's point is that you can have a pact with an archfiend without actually being a warlock.  The warlock class just has mechanical benefits from such a pact.  And you don't have to be specialized in the school of necromancy to be a powerful necromancer.  You can be a necromancer without being a wizard.  There's mechanical benefit though for specializing into that school of magic.   Are you wanting a certain character concept or certain class benefits?  Yunru is pointing out that you can be a warlock on paper who is known as a great and powerful necromancer across the land within the game.   You want at least 17 lvls of wizard if you want to get 9th lvl spells.  lvl 18 also gets you spell mastery so you can cast a single 1st lvl spell and 2nd lvl spell without spell slots which is pretty nice.   If you don't care about the warlock pact boon at lvl 3, I'd go with 18 wizard/2 warlock.  If you want the pact boon feature of a warlock more than the spell mastery feature of the wizard, go 17 wizard/3 warlock.   If you don't care to get 9th lvl spells, you can dip more levels into warlock to get more invocations maybe.  The last ability the school of necromancy grants is at lvl 14, so you could stop there.. but I'd probably go no lower than 16 wizard, with 4 lvls of warlock.   16 wizard/4 warlock: That nets you 5 ability score improvements, all of the necromancy school benefits, 8th lvl spell access, 2 invocations, and the warlock pact boon. If you do 17 wizard/3 warlock, you sacrfice an ABI to pick up access to 9th lvl spells. If you do 18 wizard/2 warlock, you net 4 ABI, all the necro benefits, 9th lvl spells, 2 invocations, but sacrifice the warlock pact boon to pick up spell mastery from the wizard class.   Or, you can be a lvl 20 wizard who narratively has a pact with an archfiend, with no mechanical benefit, unless the DM wants to give your character some sort of benefit as a houserule.  If you stick with wizard only, at 20 you'll have 5 ABI, and you'd give up 2 invocations and warlock cantrips and spell slots, but pick up the wizard's capstone: Signature Spells.  And being a "powerful necromancer", likely Animate Dead is one of your signature spells.  Probably Bestow Curse or Vampiric Touch for the other one.   I'd avoid the route of going full warlock.  They can't cast animate dead.
#8 Mechatarrasque Jul 17, 2015 11:20:07	I don't think there is an elegant way.  I would suggest adding fluff to the wizard, maybe make a custom background that gives you a benefit when dealing with fiends.  Alternatively, you could rebuild the fiend pact, swapping out pact spells for more necromancy spells.  With enough pizza, you might get your DM to let you use a spectre or a skeleton as a familiar......
#9 LordCorwin Jul 17, 2015 13:48:53	Yunru wrote:
#10 LordCorwin Jul 17, 2015 13:54:01	Bloodscythe wrote:
(Reply to #9) Yunru	LordCorwin wrote:
#12 LordCorwin Jul 17, 2015 14:25:41	NPC - "Who are you?" Warlock - "I'm a spellcaster who recharges spells on a short rest and has a different spell list than a wizard!" NPC - "Um okay. But who are you?"   Scary
#13 Yunru Jul 17, 2015 14:33:37	You aske what the differences where, not what the concept was. Nice strawman though, might keep away a few crows.
#14 cbwjm Jul 17, 2015 15:37:13	I would look at key abilities that you get from each class; at least 5 levels of Wizard will be needed to get Animate Dead or 6th level to add it for free, create more undead with each casting that are all more powerful than standard zombies/skeletons. For a finished level 20  character I would probably look at Warlock 6 (Dark Ones Blessing, luck)/Necromancer 14 (all subclass abilities) or Warlock 5/Wizard 15 for 8th level spells.   While levelling I would pick up 1 level of warlock and then the rest Wizard until I'm a Warlock 1/Wizard 6. From there I would mix and match levels as desired.
#15 LordCorwin Jul 17, 2015 15:45:27	cbwjm wrote:
#16 Yunru Jul 17, 2015 16:09:19	Oathbreaker refluffed?
#17 Treantmonklvl20 Jul 17, 2015 16:44:00	LordCorwin wrote:
#18 LordCorwin Jul 17, 2015 16:47:17	Yeah, I'm not really all that concerned about power and making broken builds. I just wanted to see if anyone had input on a way to mix the two since they are a little at odds as you say. I like your ideas about sticking to warlock spells that are more utility and generally useful between short rests and not needing a high charisma score. Great points.
(Reply to #4) arnwolf666	Yunru wrote:
#20 Mommy_was_an_Orc Jul 22, 2015 9:13:08	I think one of the basic issues is that in general, multiclassing casters in practical play is a bad idea. Especially when there's not a lot of benefit for doing so. Yes, you can get an Imp by MC'ing into Warlock and picking up 3 levels in it, but...it might be worth discussing instead with your DM to see if you can make some sort of fiendish pact and as a reward, gain an Imp in the bargain as your not-quite-familiar That sounds more of what you want anyway - a Fiendish pact where you're expected to do things for your patron and an Imp who generally looks out for your well being, but not always. Warlock's Imp always obeys and there's no actual requirement to do things for your patron.
#21 JohnnyBlaise Aug 01, 2015 9:31:32	Wow, another unhelpful thread.  To answer the OPs question: take wizard until you get double the animated dead.  Then take Warlock until the end.  You can use your warlock slots to cast the wizard spells you know (like Animate Dead and Rope Trick) so that you can effectively create an infinitely large army of the dead that you can command from your orbital assault platform.  In addition your familiar can be your eyes and ears so you need never actually leave the rope trick.
#22 Ghost_Gallus Aug 02, 2015 6:27:16	arnwolf666 wrote:
(Reply to #22) arnwolf666	Ghost_Gallus wrote:
#24 WizardV Aug 03, 2015 14:27:27	arnwolf666 wrote:
(Reply to #24) arnwolf666	WizardV wrote:
#26 Mommy_was_an_Orc Aug 03, 2015 16:40:07	arnwolf666 wrote:
#27 PhyrexianKitsune Aug 03, 2015 19:36:19	If there is one way to make warlock/wizard with a necromancy bent work it's being an undead hoardmaster. Granted, a single classed wizard can do this reasonably well and not suffer at all, but a warlock 5/wizard 15 can cast Animate Dead in a warlock spell slot. What does this mean? Animate Dead now refreshes on a short rest for you. Thus a Necro Wizard/Warlock who has warlock slots of at least 3rd level can easily crap out an Undead Army of 200+ undead before even factoring in Create Undead and Finger of Death. It is also possible to reverse this, going Warlock 14/Wizard 6, focusing almost entirely on charisma and keeping int down at the bare minimum needed to multiclass/13-14. If you do this, you suffer less MAD, still have offensive power while leveling due to Warlock's offensive package being very front-loaded and can still crap out a 200+ army, with wizard buffs, while being primarily a warlock. Sadly, your wizard casting will very much be crap, but what you should do in this case is focus your wizardly spells on things that offer no save and don't have a spell attack, I.E. buffs/defensive spells, Rituals/Utility spells, stuff like sleep etc.. The wizard list has enough "utility" "buff" and "no attack or save" spells that if you pick your spells wisely and for added utility, using warlock as your main offense, you can almost ignore the fact you don't have optimal int.   This build  however, would suffer a bit army-wise due to only being able to cast Create Undead and Finger of Death 1/day as Warlock Mystic Arcanum spells and would pick them up far later then a more wizard heavy build.... but hey, at least your still able to cast them!  This build, at least, could be somewhat salvagable and due to it's main offense comming from low-level features could, potentinally, be a tad less painful to level then a more wizard heavy build, though still by no means ideal.  However, the sheer ammount of undead you can crap out, and with wizard bonuses no less, is reason enough to at least consider it for this character. So in short, while wizard/warlock is usually a terrible idea, if you want to go for tons and tons of undead the combo does give you that, though at the cost of a rather painful leveling process. As stated, if you go more warlock heavy it's at least not as bad since you reduce MAD by taking mimimum qualifying int and just relyng on warlock stuff( eldritch blast/hex/agonizing blast/devil's sight/darkness chees etc..) as your primary offense. Doing this, I feel you could still do reasonably ok; you will, however, be locked out of undead stronger then skeles and zombies until very high levels, but in return will have more skeles and zombies than anybody else peirod.
(Reply to #26) arnwolf666	Mommy_was_an_Orc wrote:
(Reply to #28) BestNorthernDope	arnwolf666 wrote:
#30 Mommy_was_an_Orc Aug 04, 2015 6:33:38	BestNorthernDope wrote:
#31 WizardV Aug 04, 2015 16:00:09	5E does dips well. There are a lot of ways to trade combat power for utility by dipping 1-3 levels in another class. There are a few combinations which are famous around here for gaining combat power and utility by dipping. Most combinations of X Class 1+X Class 2 are a loss rather than a gain.
(Reply to #30) arnwolf666	Mommy_was_an_Orc wrote:
#33 Mommy_was_an_Orc Aug 04, 2015 19:51:57	arnwolf666 wrote:
(Reply to #33) arnwolf666	Mommy_was_an_Orc wrote:
#35 BestNorthernDope Aug 05, 2015 3:03:04	arnwolf666 wrote:
#36 Mommy_was_an_Orc Aug 05, 2015 4:55:18	arnwolf666 wrote: